Phillimon and Leonard

Today marked the first day of real work for me at Klipwal. I met the two people who will be accompanying me in the field and down the mine: Phillimon and Leonard.

Phillimon is about 50 years old and Leonard is in his early 30’s. They are both locals and Phillimon has worked in the survey department at this mine for over 20 years. He grew up around here and knows the land very well, so he’s the perfect person to be with in the field. Because he worked as an apprentice surveyor for so many years alongside upper management, Phillimon is one of the few locals who speaks good English. I learned a bit of Zulu from him today (“hello” is “sau-bon”) and I’m sure I’ll learn a lot more during our future expeditions. By the way, he doesn’t like being called Phil.

Phillimon often refers to Leonard as “my son”, although I’m not quite sure whether that’s a figure of speech or if they are actually a father-son team. Leonard helps Phillimon basically as an assistant, and as I learned today he is responsible for the wonderful job of carrying the rock samples as we go along. Conversing in English was a bit cumbersome with Leonard compared to Phillimon, but it was still manageable and they both seem like great people.

I feel pretty lucky to have two people working beside me that a) know the area inside and out, b) are such eager and hard workers, and c) always seem to be happy. They were very excited at first and curious to learn that I was American. I particularly remember Leonard being shocked about how far away that was and what a long time on a plane that would be to get home. It made me appreciate just how different their life is to mine and how lucky I am to be experiencing their culture for a bit. I think looking back at the experience I will have working with guys like Phillimon and Leonard will definitely stand out as one of the main reasons I came here in the first place.

After cleaning out the big survey office in the morning with P and L, I packed a bag full of water and food while they packed nothing but an empty sample sack and some marker pens, and we walked north down the hill to investigate some old prospecting pits that we saw on a map. I struggled to keep up with Phillimon at first as he took me down a shortcut through the thick African bush. The vegetation here is extremely dry and brittle with many plants carrying big thorns. Both my excursions into the hills so far have ended with lots of scrapes on the arms but other than that it’s not bad at all navigating through the shrubbery. The next few hours were spent taking samples, mapping, and marking down locations before we headed up back to the offices. Our trip took place from about 11 to 1, not an ideal time to be out with the sun at its most intense, but Phillimon and Leonard coped fine as I was constantly slurping water and sweating profusely.

We spent the rest of the afternoon pondering over some geological maps Leonard found in the office and trying to work out the geometries of the shear zone we are looking for that will ultimately supply us with that yellow shiny stuff that everybody seems to like. Phillimon doesn’t have great geological knowledge but as a surveyor he has amazing mapping skills and the ability to picture and draw things in three dimensions, which is key for the kind of work we are doing. It’s nice to have a couple people to work with now and fill up the massive office that I was alone in last week.

The general shift here is 7am to 4pm, and after Phillimon and Leonard left right at 4, I packed up my things and walked 5 minutes to my house. For the first 3 months I am staying in what is one of the guest houses at the mine. It’s a simple rectangle made of concrete (pretty much all the buildings here are) with a pitched roof and an awning over the front door side. The view from the front of the house looks past a small yard with a big braai pit to the Pongola river valley to the southeast. It’s about a 250 meter drop from my house down to the river and further in the distance are bigger mountains that rise into what looks like a plateau.

As you enter the house there are identical bedrooms to the left and right of the central living room. In back of the living room is a kitchen fully-stocked with food since my Friday trip to Piet Retief. I have the luxury of a double bed for the first time in, well, ever, so that’s pretty nice. There’s a big closet for clothes and a pretty standard bathroom attached. Oh but you do have to fill the cistern with water each time you use the toilet before you flush, remember that.

Not a bad place to live but it can of course get a little lonely out here, which is why it’s nice to be next door to my boss Nick who is often cooking big meals and always keen for somebody to watch TV with him.

Well word on the mine is that big bad boss (not really) Lloyd is coming tomorrow, so there was definitely a bit of tension in the air with people at work today. I may be here to see him or I may be off to Barberton for a Miner’s medical which would clear me to go underground hopefully at the end of this week!

PS: I’ve been having trouble uploading photos with my internet connection so hold tight while I try some other options and resizing. Hopefully I’m using enough adjectives in the mean time.